google+ptsd=led me to a women named Patience..

[InfantryWifeWhit]

I was just searching on google and came across this article. It was like she related things in a way that made me think, wow thats exactly whats going on here 40+ yrs later! mostly the first part of the article is where i found the similarities that i can relate too in some sort of way. I decided to post her entire article, because, another part of the story may catch another person's attention & be like , wow I know what ya mean.
everyones ptsd intal trauma(s) are different, some end up with just ptsd and some take on full blown Chronic Ptsd. The trauma(s) one experiences is different from the next person's traumatic experience(s).
Take a second to read this story if you can. I promise as much as i HATE reading, if I take time to actually post a story I actually even Read past the first two lines....it wouldn't hurt taking a glance over it even.

"PTSD and Me"
By Patience Mason, from Vol 1, No 2, of "The Post-Traumatic Gazette"

("Patience's husband Bob was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam in '65-'66 and wrote a bestselling memoir about his tour, Chickenhawk, and Chickenhawk: Back in the World. and has written numerous other books. (see the Reading Room) visit Bob's Site at:http://www.robertcmason.com/

We lived with PTSD for 14 years without knowing its name, because it didn't have one until 1980. I felt tremendous guilt, became very controlling, and started an other-centered quest for the thing that would fix my life: when I got Bob straightened out. I had no idea what was wrong but I was sure it was my fault.
I thought he didn't love me because of his emotional numbing, his attempts to isolate himself, and his lack of interest in things we had done together. I concluded I was unlovable. I saw his substance abuse not as self-medication to maintain numbness in the face of unbearable thoughts, feelings, and memories, but as deliberate naughtiness. Wild rides on his Honda 750 looked to me like stupid immaturity (except when I joined in) instead of a sense of a foreshortened future. The fact that he couldn't sleep became a joke. Rage attacks meant he was a jerk. When he couldn't remember something I'd told him, I got mad because I had never heard of the inability to concentrate, another symptom of PTSD.
My whole life became centered on fixing Bob. My upbringing told me that I could make other people happy. He wasn't happy. I wasn't happy. I figured I just wasn't trying hard enough. I knew you can do whatever you put your mind to. It never occurred to me to try another way. Even after I found out what PTSD was, my quest was still what we should do to fix Bob. I had no idea that I had problems and that my actions and reactions were making it impossible for Bob to get better. We were stuck in a series of ineffective patterns.
Finally a very caring Vietnam veteran nurse said to me, "And who is taking care of Patience?"; I realized no one was taking care of Patience. I had no idea how to do this and I was afraid to try in case I did it wrong. I felt if I made a mistake I was a mistake. I also felt like after all I'd been through and done for others they should take care of me. I resented that they didn't. I also thought I didn't deserve care or I'd be getting it. At that time I was writing Recovering From the War and first discovered Adult Children of Alcoholics literature. I really identified with the list of symptoms. Finally, I started going to an ACOA meeting (after I tried for a year to recover by just reading the books).
As I analyzed the patterns I grew up with and had developed since my marriage, I noticed that I had been affected by PTSD. My father was a surgeon in Europe during World War II. Once his hospital became part of the front line during the Battle of the Bulge. Something about the way he told me that made me realize he was talking about an experience that had really affected him. I was about eleven. He said he didn't like to talk about the war. We never did again.
Our family was organized around the principle don't bother Dad. He was brilliant, always on call, worked tirelessly, never took vacations, invented operations, had a few drinks every night to unwind. We thought this workaholics(ism) was normal. So did everyone else in America. My mother, like many other wives of WW II veterans, was left a desperately lonely woman, emotionally deprived, angry, lost. She tried to have a perfect family which entailed a lot of correcting of us kids. I grew up feeling there was something intrinsically wrong with me, that no one could love me just for myself, but maybe if I were good enough I could earn love. I consider this feeling, which is very common, a direct legacy of trauma. We had things, but we didn't have emotions or permission to be imperfect, human.
I've worked on myself since then, learning to change patterns of behavior in myself that are not the way I want to be. I can only change one day at a time, (much more slowly than I'd like), but that gives me compassion when I see how hard it is for others to change. This has let Bob recover in his own way: His symptoms are much less distressing to him and to me than they were. Five years ago, I wrote in Recovering that Bob absolutely could not say when he was having a bad day. Today he can. That is a miracle.
I don't know what your situation is. Whether you grew up with PTSD or your partner has recently been traumatized, whether you see a family member as the problem and the rest of you as fine, or you know that no one will be unaffected by a trauma even if it only strikes one of you, read and educate yourself about trauma and work at recovery for all family members. A lot of books reviewed in this issue can help.
Families are systems.
What affects one member will affect others. In "Bridging Normative and Catastrophic Family Stress", in Stress and The Family, Vol 1. McCubbin and Figley, eds., 1983, Charles Figley describes the ways functional and dysfunctional families cope with trauma. Functional families acknow-ledge and accept that there has been a trauma. The problem belongs to the family and they look for solutions and are willing to change rather than seeing it as the survivor's problem and blaming him or her for it. They seek outside help and are flexible about family roles. It is pretty humbling to go through such a list and see yourself in the dysfunctional column every time, but today I can forgive myself for that. I was doing the best I could do at the time, following patterns I grew up with or developed out of ignorance. If you are in that situation and you've picked up this Gazette, please read on and find the help that works for you. There was nothing available like the PTG or the books I am reviewing in this issue when my Mother was struggling with my Dad's unavailability. Nothing was available to me either when Bob got back from Vietnam. Years later I wrote the book I wish I had had, Recovering From The War. Today there is lots of help, lots of books are available for all types of trauma, PTSD has a name, and there is treatment available. I am grateful that today no one has to get as dysfunctional as I did.

Copywrite 1998 by Patience H. C. Mason. All rights reserved, except that permission is hereby granted to freely reproduce and distribute this document, provided the text is reproduced unaltered and entire (including this notice) and is distributed free of charge.www.patiencepress.com/

[Boog's one]

OP- your font is tiny could ya make it a little larger?

[hisgirl7477]

Ah Patience, one of our fearless leaders... well, that's what I call her anyway. Patience's articles and her book and her husband's book are just so important to this cause. And yes, they're still pertanant for this war. And she's one of the two or three things I swear got me through my rough experience with this!

Patience is a member here OP...

[Traci08]

Originally Posted by hisgirl7477 Ah Patience, one of our fearless leaders... well, that's what I call her anyway. Patience's articles and her book and her husband's book are just so important to this cause. And yes, they're still pertinent for this war. And she's one of the two or three things I swear got me through my rough experience with this! Patience is a member here OP...

Yup she is! I did the exact same thing you did, OP. And I found that very same article. It is the one I look at from time to time. If it weren't for the tremendous amount of information through experience she has openly put out for us to read, I'd still think I was crazy. And I'd still think I was very much alone. But, I'm not. And I thank her SO much for opening my eyes to it. And I think that everyone who cares for a sufferer can say, its like she was writing the story of my own life, had she not put her name on the article, I'd think that I had written it.

[InfantryWifeWhit]

Originally Posted by Traci08 Yup she is! I did the exact same thing you did, OP. And I found that very same article. It is the one I look at from time to time. If it weren't for the tremendous amount of information through experience she has openly put out for us to read, I'd still think I was crazy. And I'd still think I was very much alone. But, I'm not. And I thank her SO much for opening my eyes to it. And I think that everyone who cares for a sufferer can say, its like she was writing the story of my own life, had she not put her name on the article, I'd think that I had written it.

do you have any more of her articles? did i hear right, she is a member of this site? if so, does she post in this forum much? or do i need to search past threads to read some from her. i think i need some motivation to get past this week of him being away at ptsd inpatient program in waco, tx at the va hosp. and going more crazy in there then before his ass went from the start.. ugh! and she might just be able to help through her positive words!

[momrisner]

That was great reading. My dh has been newly diagnosed as PTSD and I am in the research stages of finding out as much as I can. Thanks for posting it.

[Traci08]

Yes, she is a member and she does come to the boards. Patience has many online articles and has written books as well. When I read her articles, she gives me hope and she opens my mind to the world known as PTSD.

I do have an article by Carla Wills Brandon. I read her article on PTSD as well. I will post it on here and I think it would be very beneficial to you if you read it. It will put your mind at ease.

[Traci08]

Originally Posted by momrisner That was great reading. My dh has been newly diagnosed as PTSD and I am in the research stages of finding out as much as I can. Thanks for posting it.

I have been researching, discussing and helping others for two years now. It is a great relief to know you're not alone when there are so many people that surround you in your daily life, off the internet who do not fully understand PTSD and the world that consumes it. With all the information that I have, I still lose my strength at times.

My biggest struggle with being a carer is, I take things personally when I shouldn't. What my husband sees as protecting us-- I see it as avoiding us and pushing us away completely out of his life. Its hard to be one step ahead of the game when the rules are constantly changing. I can say something one day that he thought was funny, then say it again a week later and he goes ballistic! Also as a carer, I sometimes walk on eggshells with him due to the fact I never know what he's going to say or do.

We're never going to be perfect as carers, but our SO's sometimes expect us to be. We lose our strength and sometimes cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. A lot like our SO's see. I lose my patience from time to time, as anyone would to the challenges we face daily. Its hard not to take things personally, because they're directed at us. One thing I stress to my husband is, he's normal. He's not crazy, he is only doing what he knows how to do. And he is so scared to let me and our son see the man who he was at war, that he just pushes us away. He holds a lot of guilt for the things he had to do and the things that he saw. He also carries the guilt for coming home and not being the person he used to be.

The thing about PTSD sufferers is they have very low self-esteem. And it is very, very difficult for them to feel love and give love back. They do this because they don't love themselves. They wake up every morning to see a person in their bathroom mirror that they can't even recognize. He is this stranger unto himself and I can't imagine just how scary that can be for someone. Just as us carers do, our SO's desperately try to get acquainted with themselves, because the person they used to be, never left the war. They come back a stranger to themselves, their family and their friends. They hold this guilt too.

Patience is your only friend, while you both get acquainted with the stranger that has entered your home. Not only are they a stranger to you, but you're a stranger to them too. This is probably the cause of most divorces. The carer and the sufferer want so badly to have themselves back, that the sufferer will distance themselves from you in order to be in complete control. And the carer grieves so much over the person that they lost, that they have such a difficult time accepting the person their sufferer is today.

A friend once gave me some really great advice. She said, if you want a relationship to heal, stop picking at its wounds. Stop obsessing over who was lost and accept who it is you're going to gain. Every once in a while, the person you saw before the war will come to the surface. But, with the roller coaster ride of emotions they hold, that person will drop below the surface and the roller coaster ride will begin once again.

As a carer, we can say all the right things, but our sufferers need to see it to believe it. If you're saying the words such as, "I love you." Our SO's need to be shown. They need to relearn to love and be loved by you. In a world of PTSD, words are just words. But to a sufferer seeing it, is believing it.

[InfantryWifeWhit]

They need to relearn to love and be loved by you. In a world of PTSD, words are just words. But to a sufferer seeing it, is believing it